


Walking With a Ghost

by StilesBastille24



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Murder House
Genre: Alternate Meeting, F/M, cannon typical mentions of violence, ghost hunter!violet, my favorite problematic couple, tate has issues, their intensity toward each other is A++, violet isn't afraid of anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 07:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16363811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StilesBastille24/pseuds/StilesBastille24
Summary: To be honest, the whole dead people aspect was the only reason Violet had agreed to this crappy summer arrangement in the first place. Back home, Violet had a small group of friends who were just as weird and just as bad at fitting in as she was. One of their areas of interest, morbid stuff. And Murder House was about as morbid as you could get.In the upper right hand corner of Murder House, a blonde guy was peering out of a window. Violet tilted a salute in his direction. Violet hadn’t been expecting their guide to be a teenager around her age, but who better than some loner, loser, high schooler to be all about the house everybody and their brother died in.“Violet!” Billie Dean called. “Let us make our entrance into,” she paused for dramatic effect, “Murder House!”





	Walking With a Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> So, a couple of things first. 
> 
> 1\. This was supposed to be around 2,000 words. That didn't work out.  
> 2\. Tate and Violet are definitely a problematic couple, but so are other couples in real life, so I'm willing to roll with that. But it also means, I'm not going to paint Tate as someone who should be forgiven and I don't paint Violet as someone who forgives him. But she does accept him, murder and all, she accepts him just as he is.  
> 3\. I started writing this before S8xE6 so I was pleasantly surprised that the show also had the next buyers cast as lesbians.  
> 4\. Title from the song of the same name by Tegan and Sara because it just seemed so fitting.

Violet Harmon threw her cigarette to the sidewalk and crushed it beneath one heel. In the bright California sun, she squinted at the monstrosity of a house Billie Dean Howard was gesticulating at wildly. 

“Absolutely gorgeous!” Billie Dean gushed. “Look at the architecture! And to think, this house has never had a family that hasn’t died in it.”

Violet looked over her shoulder at the tour bus stopped behind them. All of the tourists gawking at Billie Dean’s performance, cameras and phones in hand, stretched out toward the brick death sentence. 

“Murder House!” the tour operator declared into his echoing microphone. 

Violet side stepped toward the shade of the tree near the curb. Her pale skin was a sunburn waiting to happen in this godforsaken state. She wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for that whole ‘incident’ in the last few weeks of school before summer vacation. 

But wham-bam, thank you ma’am, one poor choice and the next thing Violet knew she was on a plane to California to spend her summer with her mom’s weird college roommate who had a penchant for ghosts. Of course, that is what her parents had told her. But Violet knew it wasn’t just the lines on her wrists that caused her sudden exodus the summer before her senior year of High School. 

It was very much the young mistress her dad had been shacking up with ever since Violet’s mom’s super brutal miscarriage. Violet’s dad was a grade A asshole and Violet had always known it. Her mother was the exact opposite, this delicate musician who needed to be nurtured and cared for. That had been Violet’s job which was a shocker since it was her dad who was the shrink. 

And yet, Violet was still the one who had gotten banished and not her dad. Now, she was doomed to spend her summer with a wanna be Ghost Hunter who probably had pictures of Zack whatever-his-name-was framed around her bedroom. Billie Dean Howard was a self-proclaimed Medium. Like that old show with Patricia Arquette. 

Billie’s first conquest this summer, in a silent bid to earn herself a TV show, was the infamous Murder House. At least, infamous to the nutjobs who paid for ghost tours around L.A. And poor Violet was the tag along who had to provide Billie with coffee, video shit when Billie Dean got a ‘feeling,’ and generally feel like a complete loser. 

Billie was still show boating for the tour bus crowd, going on about ‘vibrations’ and ‘energies’ she felt in the house. Violet tipped down her sunglasses, surveying the surrounding houses for any actual living occupants. There were none to be seen. Except, in the upper right hand corner of Murder House, a blonde guy was peering down at them. Violet tilted a salute in his direction. 

Billie said she had asked a friend of hers for a Murder House ‘expert’ to show them around the house. Violet hadn’t been expecting a teenager around her age, but who better than some loner, loser, high schooler to be all about the house everybody and their brother died in. 

And, to be honest, the whole dead people aspect was the only reason Violet had agreed to this shitty summer arrangement in the first place. Violet was weird and didn’t fit in, but back home, she had a small group of friends who were just as weird and just as bad at fitting in. One of their areas of interest, morbid shit. And Murder House was about as morbid as you could get. 

“Violet!” Billie Dean called. “Let us make our entrance into,” she paused for dramatic effect, “Murder House!”

There was a rousing cheer from the tour bus and Violet slunk forward towards the house. The sidewalk leading to the front door was cracked in several places and weeds grew along the edges. As nice as the outside facade of the house looked, its landscaping gave away the general neglect a house that was known to kill its occupants had earned. 

Violet was mildly thrilled when the front door literally creaked on its hinges. She smiled to herself, fingers crossed behind her back that the house would provide gruesome horror stories since clearly ghosts were out of the question. Billie might be a believer or she might just be out for her next paycheck, but Violet was a realist. There were no such things as ghosts.

~*~*~*~

“Hello?” Billie Dean’s voice rang through the empty house.

In a desperate bid to find buyers, the real estate agent kept the house fully furnished. The furniture was all dated, but tasteful so that it offered the house an air of glamour instead of desolation. Violet looked around with interest, she particularly liked the stain glass in the windows. Growing up, she had always wanted to live in a house just like this, a Victorian classic that oozed history.

“Langdon’s supposed to meet us,” Billie said, turning back to Violet. 

“I saw a guy upstairs,” she offered. 

Billie nodded, satisfied. “Then let’s go to him.” 

Violet followed Billie up the curving stairs to the second floor. The wood paneled hallway spanned in both directions. Violet pointed to the left. “I saw him in the right window from outside so . . . “

Billie went left, her heels clicking on the floor. The house smelled of dust and wood. It wasn’t a bad smell, but it was definitely one that belonged in a house people hadn’t lived in for a while. “Hello?” Billie called again. 

“I said no,” an older female voice spoke from the last room at the end of the hallway. 

“Constance?” Billie asked, raising her voice to be heard. 

“Billie Dean, is that you?” The woman’s voice had a faint southern twang to it and Violet recoiled instinctively. Republicans. Conservatives. They were way more frightening than ghosts could ever be. 

Violet and Billie stopped at the doorway that gave in on a room that had the distinctive look of belonging to a teenage boy. It was a weird decor taste in Violet’s opinion, especially the Nirvana posters on the wall, but she didn’t fault the real estate agent for trying everything in her power to try and hook a buyer. 

“Oh, Billie Dean! I am so happy you are here!” Constance, a frail looking woman with a bizarre hairdo more fit to the 1960s than the 2000s, swooped in and caught Billie up in a tight hug. 

Violet glanced around the room looking for who Constance had been talking to. In particular, the boy she had seen in the window. But the room was empty now, save for Constance Langdon. 

“Where shall we start?” Billie asked, turning around to incorporate the whole of the house. 

“Oh, the parlor, of course. An absolutely classic room.” Constance swept forward, leading the way out of the room and back to the stairs. 

Violet lingered behind, still scoping out the bedroom. She was checking out the retro cassette deck on the dresser when the closet door suddenly opened. Violet whirled around, heart abruptly in her throat, and shrieked as a white faced figure emerged from the darkness. 

“Boo!” the figure shouted and Violet threw a punch. 

It was caught in a hand made of flesh and bone, not spectral energy. “What the fuck?” Violet demanded, heart rate slowing now that her unfounded fears were assailed. 

The guy laughed, the same blonde guy she had seen in the window. “Sorry, easy target, though.” 

Violet gave him her most withering stare. It didn’t matter that he was ten kinds of hot, he was an asshole, same as her dad. “Cool, bro,” she mocked, turning on her heel and heading after the slowly dissipating voices of Billie Dean and Constance. 

“Hey, no, wait,” the guy said, one hand curling around her elbow. Violet shook him off, side stepping his approach. 

“What?” Violet asked flatly. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave her best ‘I am so not impressed’ face. 

“I’m Tate,” the guy offered, hands shoved in his jean pockets to show he wasn’t going to bother her again. “You’re here with Billie Dean, right? For the ghost stuff?”

“No,” Violet said, “I broke in to steal all the good shit in here. Like the cassette player.” The guy shot a look back at the bedroom and frowned. Violet rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m here with Billie Dean.”

“Oh,” the guy smiled. It was a horribly attractive smile, one that made Violet think of all the dumb crushes she’d had on boys in her school. “You, uh, believe in ghosts?”

“No,” Violet said. “But that’s not my job. I’m just here to assist Billie Dean and she does believe in ghosts.” 

Tate took her at her word which Violet appreciated. It would have been really obnoxious to have some guy trying to convince her that no, the spooky and mysterious was real. “Constance is walking you guys through the place?”

“I guess so. Billie is down in the parlor with her, so I guess I should get down there.” She turned back to the stairs. This time, she kind of hoped Tate would try to pull her back. 

When he didn’t, she went down the staircase and joined Constance and Billie. Constance was giving a grand speech on the quality of the stain glass. Billie made a good show of being invested, but Violet saw her attention flitting around the room. 

Violet hung back, leaning up against the wall. She looked up the stairs, but Tate had disappeared from sight. She wondered if Constance brought him around on all of her little tours of the house and if that was why the room was made up to look like a teenage boy’s, so Tate would have somewhere to go while his grandma, or aunt, or whoever she was, sold tourists the horrors of Murder House. Or, in this case, the fascinating back story of its stain glass. 

“Violet,” Billie Dean said. 

Violet looked up and found Billie motioning her to follow. Violet pushed off the wall and crossed to her boss. “Is this really what we are here for? To learn the selling points of this period home?”

Billie quirked a smile. “No, we’re not. But Constance is an old friend and she loves this house very much. If she wants to glamorize its history before diving into the spirits, then I’m more than happy to listen. You, however,” she pressed her hand against Violet’s shoulder, guiding her away from the next room, “are more than free to explore before we get down to business. I’ll give you a shout when I need you, okay?”

Violet eagerly agreed. “Awesome.” 

She took off toward a room on the opposite side of the house before Billie could change her mind. The room turned out to be a study of sorts, with a huge wooden desk as its centerpiece and all four walls lined with bookshelves. 

The bookshelves were unsurprisingly empty, but the space was impressive nonetheless. It kind of reminded her of her father’s practice, not that she had been allowed inside often. She could easily imagine the shelves packed full of books on psychology, self-esteem, and a few science-fiction books slipped in between. Violet ran her hand over the desk, feeling the polished wood. 

“Nice, isn’t it?”

“Why, you have a lot of books you need space for?” Violet asked. 

Tate laughed as he came to stand beside her. “No, but its got a whole atmosphere, don’t you think?”

Violet felt a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah, I guess. Do you have to come here a lot?”

Tate made a face down at the desk. “I spend most of my time here, at the house.”

“That’s got to get old,” Violet said. 

“I mean, there are worse fates. At least I’m not hanging around a cemetery.” Tate leaned his back against the desk, his messy bangs falling across his forehead and into his eyes. 

“So you’re family is really into this whole Murder House thing? I’m just here because I’m helping out Billie Dean for the summer, but normally, ghosts and haunted houses aren’t my thing.” 

“Because you don’t believe in ghosts,” Tate said with a grin. 

“Right.” Violet smiled back. 

“But the real question is, do you like ghost stories?” 

Violet thought it over. She had come with the hope of hearing about the house’s deadly history. Instead, she had met a cute guy who wanted to tell her scary stories. She could deal with that. “Sure, but I’m not afraid of anything, really.”

“Jaded childhood?” At her nod, he smirked, “I can commiserate. But that’ll just make it more fun, right? I’ll try and scare you and you’ll try not to get scared.” 

“Okay, give it your best shot,” Violet challenged.

~*~*~*~

They started in the basement, which Violet had to admit, in general, was a creepy place. It was one of those super old basements with no renovations and a lingering smell of mildew. She found herself staying a step or two closer to Tate than was necessary.

“This is how the house became haunted in the first place,” Tate said, gesturing grandly to the concrete floor and brick walls around them. “It’s also how the house earned its name.”

Violet peered around the shadowy space and tried to fight back the uneasy feeling that someone or something was watching her from around the corner of one of the brick walls. “So,” she promoted, “what happened?”

“This is where Dr. Charles Montgomery held court, releasing wed and unwed mothers alike of their unborn bundles of joy.”

Violet was unimpressed. “So the guy performed abortions? You’re going to have to excuse my pro-choice opinion because that doesn’t sound like a horror story to me.”

Tate gave her a sidelong glance, corner of his mouth perked upwards. “Guess you were raised by rabid Christians?”

“My dad’s a psychologist. The only thing we are rabid about is deeply concealing our real feelings.” Violet turned around, ready to leave the mildew behind if all it was concealing was an abortion doctor. 

Tate’s hand wrapped vice like around her wrist. “Too scared to hear the rest?”

“Hardly,” Violet scoffed. 

“Good.” He shifted his hand so their palms were together and Violet went against her better judgment and let him hold her hand. Tate led her deeper into the basement, past the brick walls that created a seeming labyrinth beneath the house. 

When they had reached the furthest corner of the basement, Tate stopped. Violet looked around, not knowing what she expected to see. The walls were brick, but there was a stretch of the basement that was half hidden in shadows. A chill went down her spine. 

“You might not care about the abortions, but the people of the city back then, they cared a lot,” Tate said. “They cared so much one night they came in and stole baby Montgomery right out of his crib.”

Violet let her surprise show in her face. “What happened to the kid?”

“They returned him eventually,” Tate said slowly, building up to the finale of the story, “in pieces.”

Violet made a face of disgust. “That’s fucking gross. And I don’t believe you.” It had been stupid coming down here with Tate, he was clearly a little off balance. She shouldn’t have let herself be distracted by his pretty face. The only guys who ever paid her attention were the straight up weirdos. 

“No, wait,” Tate pleaded when she started to try and find her way back to the stairs. “It’s a true story,” he said, shrugging his shoulders beneath the heavy cardigan he was wearing. “You can look it up yourself.”

That gave Violet pause. “So what, the place is haunted by a little kid?”

“No,” Tate answered. “Because that wasn’t the end of the story.”

He had her attention again. Violet looked around him to that shadowed place against the far wall. She looked back at Tate. “So what is the end?”

“Dr. Montgomery thought he could fix his kid. See, he was pretty deep into his addiction to anesthesia by then and he’d always been a bit on the mad side. So one night, he comes to Nora Montgomery, his wife, tells her he’s saved their son. She comes down with him to the basement to see what he means. Down here.” Tate pointed to the space they were standing in. 

A flicker of movement in the shadows distracted Violet. She took a step forward, feeling sure if she was a little closer she would see it was just a gross rat or something. But the flicker wasn’t there anymore. 

“What Dr. Montgomery showed her, the creature, the monster he had turned their child into - it was enough to drive Nora mad. She took her husband’s gun, shot him then killed herself.”

Tate’s voice sounded distant as Violet felt herself drawn closer to shadows. She was leaning down now, head leaning left then right and she tried to see what the wavery glimpse of white was. A sheet left behind on a chair or something?

“They say the Montgomery’s never really left after that. Trapped forever in Murder House. The three of them, mother, father, and son.” 

The streak of white was close now, close enough for Violet to reach out and prove it was nothing more than a sheet. She groped for it, half afraid her hand would go through it, half afraid she would touch it. 

“If you could call what their child became a son. See, Dr. Montgomery pieced him back together alright, but with some extra parts too. Parts from animals. Bats, rodents, creatures with their bellies low in the dirt.” 

Violet’s fingertips brushed against fabric. Honest to god fabric, a hysterical laugh slipped past her lips. This was stupid, she was feeling up a sheet thinking it was a fucking link to the afterlife. She was drawing her hand back, ready to call Tate out for this whole stupid charade, when the claws raked across the back of her hand.

Claws, attached to the diminutive hand of toddler. Violet screamed. She screamed with sheer terror, stumbling backwards, tripping over nothing and flailing to keep herself from hitting the ground. She didn’t want to fall, to be at eye level with whatever the hell had just scratched her deep enough to bleed. 

“Hey, Violet!” Tate’s arms were around her in an instant, hauling her upright and pulling her in close to the warmth of his solid chest. 

Violet pushed violently away from him. “What the fuck!” she yelled, flashing her bleeding hand at him before taking off into the maze of brick walls to get to the stairs.

She had to get out of that basement. Whatever that - that thing was, prank or imagination or fucking rusty nails, Violet was not going to be anywhere near it. From behind her, she heard Tate calling, “I thought you weren't afraid of anything!” 

Emerging from the basement, Violet shouted towards the kitchen, “I’m leaving, Billie Dean. I am fucking done!” She beat a hasty retreat out the front door and towards Billie’s car, parked against the sidewalk. 

Violet yanked fruitlessly on the handle of the locked car, her right hand burning from the four thin lines that were scratched into her white skin. The cuts themselves were hardly visible beneath the smear of blood that covered them. Hastily, Violet wiped her hand against the black hem of her top. Even if the blood didn’t come out in the wash, it would be impossible to notice against the color of the fabric. 

“Violet, what happened?” Billie Dean asked, racing down the front sidewalk to her. 

“I got attacked,” she said, holding her hand up as evidence. 

Billie stopped in her tracks, staring at Violet’s hand. Her eyes snapped to Violet’s. “It touched you? The ghost?”

“There are no ghosts!” Violet glared at Billie Dean. “There’s just a stupid asshole who thought this would make a funny joke. Well, I’m not laughing, I’m pissed. Now can we please go before I bleed to death on the sidewalk?”

Billie jolted back into motion, nodding and fumbling through her purse for her car keys. “I’ll tell Constance we’ll be back tomorrow,” she murmured to herself. 

“Like hell.” Violet shook her head rapidly. “I am not coming back to this freak show. Count me out.”

Billie finally found her keys and Violet climbed into the car as soon as Billie unlocked it. Driving away, Violet refused to look at the house. But in the side mirror, she could just make out the outline of someone standing in the second story window.

~*~*~*~

“I told you I wasn’t going,” Violet said firmly, refusing to leave the passenger seat. She stared pointedly at her wrapped right hand. “I was injured here and you don’t seem to be shelling out worker’s comp, so the answer is No. N-O.”

Billie Dean breathed slowly through her nose, eyes pinched shut. She knew she was driving Billie crazy, but the feeling went both ways. Violet didn’t understand why Billie was trying to drag her back into the place where she had been maimed. 

“Please, Violet. I still need your help with this segment, and I promise if you stay with me the entire time, no harm will come to you.”

Violet pursed her lips, staring stonily out the windshield. Truth be told, Billie had been really concerned about the whole maiming incident. She made Violet promise she wouldn’t go back in the basement, as if anything could ever incite her to. Billie also did this whole weird ceremony with sage burning and some whispered prayers over Violet’s cuts to keep her safe from the evil that had inflicted them on her. 

It was way over the top, in Violet’s opinion, but it was nice of Billie Dean to do it all the same. In retrospect, it was easy to see that Violet had probably been scratched by a white cat. That at least was in the realm of reality, unlike the thing she’d thought she’d seen. The thing that could not have been a toddler because it was too - the point was, she wasn’t thinking about that anymore. It had just been a stupid illusion brought on by Tate’s creepy stupid story. 

Which fuck him, anyway. What an asshole. That was another reason she didn’t want to go back to the house. But she wasn’t going to tell Billie that. Especially not with Tate being of some relation to Constance and Billie Dean being all BFFs with Constance. It would be awkward. It could cause a weird he said she said thing. Violet didn’t want any part of that drama. 

So she allowed herself to be talked into going back into the house. She followed slowly after Billie toward the house. She didn’t even shiver passing through the doorway into the house. 

But ten minutes later, she could feel a pair of eyes staring at the back of her neck. She was in the living room, sitting on the couch while Constance bored Violet and Billie Dean with why the most recent perspective buyers were the entirely wrong sort. 

“Lesbians,” she kept saying, like it was a dirty word. “They wouldn’t know a thing about how to keep this house in its prime.”

Violet had half a mind to declare that she was a lesbian, just to get Constance to shut up. Instead, she lost the thread of the conversation, feeling Tate’s gaze burn into her like that. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of turning around but after about ten minutes, it got to be ridiculous. 

Violet looked over her shoulder. He was sitting at the banister of the stairs, looking down at her between the rails. She flipped him off. 

“I’m going out to have a smoke, is that okay?” Violet asked, interrupting Constance in another complaint about the lesbians. 

Billie Dean nodded without taking her attention away from Constance. 

Violet dug in her pocket for her cigarettes as she went into the kitchen and out through the side door. She sat down on the ledge of the pillared wall there, fitting a cigarette between her fingers. 

With her right hand, she searched her saddle bag for her lighter but couldn’t seem to find it. Frustrated, she brought the bag around to her lap to dig through it properly. 

The quick scratch of a match being lit stopped her. She looked up to see Tate offering her the light. Violet pressed the tip of her cigarette to the flame. “I’m not talking to you,” she informed him before taking a drag off the cigarette. 

“I’m sorry about last time,” he said, sounding pathetically apologetic. “I just thought you wanted a good scare, since nothing scares you, but things went a little sideways.”

Violet rolled her eyes, grateful for her hat so that the rays of the sun didn’t slant into her face like they were on Tate’s. He was squinting, his sandy brown hair lit up with a hundred different high and low lights. “Your cat clawed me. And you were being a jerk on purpose.”

Tate looked at her bandaged hand for a second. “You still came back.”

“I’m being paid to be here,” Violet pointed out. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be.”

“I was hoping you’d come back,” Tate confessed. 

Violet wavered between being flattered and weirded out. “It’s summer,” she said, “shouldn’t you be out with your friends, getting laid, or surfing or whatever it is that California guys do for fun in the summer?”

Tate smiled. “Really that’s what you think guys do? Have sex or go surfing?”

“Isn’t it?” Violet challenged. 

Tate shrugged, his smile fading. “Maybe. I wouldn’t know.”

“Wow.” Violet sucked in a lungful of smoke then blew it out in Tate’s face. “Way to sound like a loser.”

He beat back the smoke, but he was grinning again. “Right, because you’re much cooler. Trailing after a psychic and visiting supposed haunted houses.” 

“Beats pretending your white cat is a ghost.” Violet jabbed her cigarette in his direction.

Tate didn't answer, busy fiddling with the cuffs of another one of his warm cardigans. It didn’t fit with the weather, that heavy wool cardigan in the middle of 80 degree weather. 

“So. You got another scary story you’re going to tell me today?” she asked. 

“Do you want me to?” Tate asked, sounding honestly surprised. 

“The tour guide, the one with the bus, he said every family who ever lived here has died. Is that true?”

“Well, not every family,” Tate allowed. “Members of the family, but not every single person in the family.” 

Violet shivered, but it was the good kind. Like when you get close enough to the fire that it could burn you, so close you can feel that barely contained heat. It was her favorite feeling. “Scare me,” she challenged. 

Tate looked up at her, a smile flashing across his lips. “In the 90s,” he said, “there was this family living here. Mom, dad, two little girls. But the dad, he was a creep, having an affair with the woman next door.” He jerked his thumb to the house beside them. 

Violet lifted her eyebrows, interested. “What happened?”

“The husband came home one night, told his wife that he was going to leave her for the neighbor. The wife went up to bed like normal. The guy is downstairs reading the paper or whatever the fuck he was doing. But then he starts smelling smoke. He runs for the stairs and when he gets to his kids’ room, the door’s locked and smoke is pouring out from beneath.”

Violet couldn’t help but look up, trying to imagine which room still held scars of the fire. Maybe it still smelled like smoke sometimes. She leaned back on the wall to see up at the windows. For just a moment - well, for a moment she thought she saw something in the windows of the middle room. 

But it was trick of the morning light, the orange and red color it cast on the glass. She looked back at Tate. “Did they all die?”

He shook his head, attention diverted to pulling out a thread from the cuff of his left sleeve. “The dad made it out just fine, even ended up marrying the slut next door. But the mom and kids, burned to a crisp. They had to use dental records to identify them.”

Violet shivered again. She looked at the house, at the impassive bricks it was built of, holding in all these deaths, murders. “Cool,” she whispered. 

Tate shot her a look, but didn’t question her uncouth reaction. “Do you want me to show you where it happened?”

The only answer to that was yes, but Violet gave pause to what Billie Dean might think. If Billie might be annoyed if Violet went scouting out murder hotspots without her. She wavered, gaze darting from the upstairs window to the portion of siding that hid the living room from view. 

Eventually, curiosity won. “Show me.”

Tate grinned, showing a row of straight white front teeth. His bottom lip covered his bottom teeth and Violet drank in the uniqueness of his smile. It seemed a lot like Tate, one piece of him hidden just out of sight. She hadn’t figured out what it was he was hiding and she honestly wasn’t trying that hard. She had found that most of the secrets people were keeping could only hurt you when they were revealed. 

Tate offered her his hand, left palm face up. She took it. 

Tate led her through the back of the house to a set of stairs she hadn’t even known the house had. “Servant stairs,” he explained. “So that the owners and guests wouldn’t have to see how their beds were made or rooms were cleaned.” He sounded disgusted and Violet agreed. 

“Bourgeois assholes,” she muttered. 

Tate flashed her an appreciative smile before following it up with venom. “My mother still thinks she’s part of that high class. No matter that she’ll sleep with any man dumb enough to tell her she’s beautiful.” 

Violet shot him a look, the old oak stairs creaking underfoot. She hoped the others couldn’t hear them downstairs. The last thing she wanted was a lecture from Billie or Constance about sneaking around the house. She was seventeen, not a child. 

“That’s the room,” Tate said, pointing to the middle door on the left side of the hallway. 

It was a normal door, not that Violet was expecting it to be charred or smeared in blood or something. But that was kind of the thing with violence. You would think it would leave some sort of mark, but it didn’t, not really. It could be cleaned away, or repaired, or painted over. 

“Are we going inside or are we just going to stare at the door all day?” Violet asked. 

Tate smirked at her. “Well, if you’re not too afraid.”

Violet stepped past him and turned the knob on the door. It opened readily, swinging open into a room with two twin beds, lacy yellow curtains, a toy chest on one side of the room. “Who choose the decor for these room? A real creep.” 

Tate shrugged, his hands shoved deep in his jean pockets. “Kinda nice though too, if there really are ghosts here.”

Violet rolled her eyes. “Do you really believe that stuff? Or have you just been hanging out here too long?”

Tate’s brows furrowed and he pushed off the doorway he had been leaning against. “I wouldn’t mind getting out more,” he allowed. 

Crossing the room, Violet sat down on the edge of one of the beds. The bedspread was white with yellow roses across it. The sheets had a soft, worn feel. The sunlight kept the room warm and a little stuffy. It reminded Violet of a cabin she had gone to with one of her friends, in upstate New York. 

Violet laid back on the bed, crossing her hands over her chest, and stared up at the ornate light fixture. After a few moments, Violet heard the bed next to hers creak under the weight of a body. 

“I’m stuck here for the summer. My dad, he cheated on my mom. Really gross stuff. With his student at the college he was working at. It all happened right after my mom had this awful miscarriage. They shipped me off here so they could deal with their drama and I could deal with mine.”

The confession came out in a few smooth breaths. She’d been waiting for weeks to tell someone. She had been ripped away for the summer before she’d worked up the courage to confide in one of her friends. Not that she had a ton of friends, but she had enough that she could have told them the secrets she was harboring. There were a lot of them. Including the ones hidden beneath the cuffs of her long sleeves. 

“And what’s your drama?” Tate asked. 

Violet tilted her head to the left. Tate was looking at her. His brown eyes, an impossibly dark brown that she couldn’t find his pupils at first glance. “I’m a teenager,” she said flatly. “I’m angsty, I hate pretty much everything, and sometimes I – “ She shook her head. 

Tate rolled up the cuff of his left sleeve and held it towards her. “Sometimes I do too.” She gazed at the several horizontal white lines scarring it. 

“You’d think with my dad being a psychologist and all that would have had some kind of impact on me. You know, kept me away from dangerous habits.” She rolled her own sleeve up, stretching her arm across the short distance between them. She ran her thumb over one of the lines etched in a pale pink line. “The first day I got sent here, to California.” 

“Have you done it since?” Tate turned on his side, propping his head up in his hand. 

Violet scrunched up her eyes, thinking. “No, actually. Being away from my family has apparently been very stress relieving for me.”

“That’s good.” Tate’s voice was suddenly overly earnest. “I knew somebody else like us. He learned to cut vertical.”

Violet let that sink in for a moment. She’d never known anyone who actually killed themselves before. It wasn’t something she actively thought about. It was just there, in the background sometimes, at the fringes. A darkness that was one of the only things that truly scared Violet, to the core. 

“My mom,” Tate started, “she’s the reason my dad left. He found out she was sleeping around with anything male that moved. So he took off. Left me and my little sister Adelaide trapped with her. I hate him. Not as much as I hate my mom though.” 

“Parents are the worst. I love my mom. I wouldn’t care if my dad took off tomorrow. But my mom, she’s awesome, even when she’s being dumb and letting my dad get away with all the shit he does. I wouldn’t even be surprised if when she caught him cheating, it wasn’t the first time he’d slept with someone else.” Violet rolled onto her side, pillowed her head on her hands. 

Tate watched her, his blonde messy hair falling in front of his eyes, but he didn’t bother to brush it back. “When do you have to go back?”

“A couple of weeks before school starts. Unless by some miracle my mom decides she’s better off without my dad and moves down her to be closer to Billie. They were some type of college roommates and best friends duo back in the day.”

“Cool,” Tate said. He grinned. “That means you can spend the summer hanging out with me.”

“Oh wow,” Violet laughed. “Really think you’re hot stuff, huh? That I’d want to spend my whole summer with you?”

Tate’s face crumpled, a look of surprising hurt sparking in his eyes. Violet frowned. “Hey,” she said, sitting up. “I was kidding. I mean, you’re the coolest guy I’ve met so far.”

“Come on,” she goaded, when he didn’t say anything. “Tell me more about this room. What were the names of the girls?”

“I don’t remember,” Tate said, but at least he was talking to her again. She relaxed and Tate sat up too, his features smoothing out. “But this isn’t the only room people died in. Want me to show you another?”

“Yeah,” Violet agreed. 

A sudden knock at the door startled them both. Violet jerked to her feet and looked at Tate fearfully. The door pushed open and Billie peered around the edge. “There you are,” she said, her shoulders sagging in relief. 

Tate moved out of sight, crowding against the wardrobe on the far wall. Violet shifted so that she was mostly blocking Billie’s view into the room. “What’s up?”

“I think . . .” Billie frowned, looking at Violet then over her shoulder. Violet refused to flinch, not wanting to reveal Tate if he had an aversion to Billie for whatever reason. She knew Billie could be off putting with all her talk of communing with the spirits. 

“I think we should go,” Billie continued. “We can come back tomorrow. Constance felt a migraine coming on and without her to show us around . . .” she trailed off. 

Violet didn’t want to leave, not really. She had liked hanging out with Tate, even if he was taciturn and moody. A typical teenage boy, really. Or at least, the kind she hung out with back in New York. Except none of them had ever shown an interest in her like Tate did. 

But there wasn’t anything she could tell Billie that wouldn’t give her away. So she nodded. “Yeah, okay. Give me a second though, I think I dropped my hair tie under the bed.” 

Billie hovered in the doorway for a moment. Again, her eyes scanned the room behind Violet. Apparently finding nothing, she reluctantly gave in, stepping back. “I’ll meet you in the car.” 

When Violet heard Billie’s footsteps fade away and start echoing down the curved staircase, Violet closed the door as quietly as she could. She turned and found Tate still huddled near the wardrobe. Violet looked at him expectantly. 

“See you tomorrow,” he said, but it came out as more of a question. 

“You’re weird,” Violet said, the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile. 

Tate reflected the smile. “But you like weird right? Weird and scary?”

“Definitely,” Violet affirmed. She tilted a look in Tate’s direction, one that probably showed that she had formed some kind of stupid, tiny crush on him. But Tate was the kind of guy she thought wouldn’t know what that look meant. She was glad for that. 

Violet opened the door and slipped out down the back staircase. She crossed the garden and made her way around to Billie’s car. Opening the door, she eased down into the passenger seat. 

Billie was holding firmly onto the steering wheel, staring straight out the windshield. “Did you see that boy again? The one you saw the first day we got here?”

Violet shot her a look, but Billie didn’t meet it. So Violet decided to lie. “No, I didn’t.”

“How’d you end up in that room?” Billie asked. From the way she looked, it was a question of uncomfortable importance. 

“I felt vibrations,” Violet teased, trying to ease the mood in the car. 

At Billie’s huff of laughter, it seemed to have worked. “Well, I knew there was a reason I asked you to be my assistant. But, Violet,” finally she turned, met Violet’s gaze head on, “try and stay with me, next time in the house? You might not feel the vibrations, but I do and they aren’t good. They’re – dark. Very dark.” 

“Okay,” Violet allowed uncertainly. She glanced up at the impressive façade of the brick mansion. The windows cloaked in shadows. Except for the one on the far right, where a boy in an ugly green sweater stared out at her.

~*~*~*~

The next morning it was raining. Pouring actually. Thunder crashed overhead, lighting danced across the sky. Violet glared out the windshield. “We’re getting drenched the moment we step out of the car.”

Billie scowled up at the weather, her perfectly done hair would be ruined the second a rain drop landed on her. “This is the last time we are coming here. Constance is going to show us around, you’re going to roll the camera while I ‘commune’ with the spirits,” even Billie put a tone of malice on the word, “and then we are out of here.” 

Violet was surprised by Billie’s sudden turn in feelings. She had seemed so excited about the house when she first told Violet they would be recording there. Now, well, now she sounded almost worried. “Are you scared of this house, Billie?”

There was a pause, then Billie turned to her, she set one hand gently on Violet’s knee. “I can see and hear a lot of things other people can’t. But some of those things, I wish I couldn’t. And there are things, in this house,” she flicked her eyes toward the house behind Violet’s shoulders, “that scare me.” 

Funny, how Violet no longer felt the same. She liked the house, more than she had at first. Certain parts of it, especially. Like some of the people who occupied it. Or, at least, one of the people who sometimes occupied it.

“Let’s see how today goes,” Violet offered. “If you’re still spooked by the end, we won’t come back. But I think you could get some really awesome footage here.”

Billie gave her a lopsided smile. “Remember our deal, stay close.”

“Promise,” Violet held up her right hand solemnly.

~*~*~*~

“Oh, Billie, darling,” Constance gushed as they entered the house side by side. “I was almost afraid you weren’t coming today. What with the weather and all.” She flicked an unconcerned hand toward the downpour behind them.

Violet glared at her. The umbrella they were squeezed beneath still left their shoulders in the rain and her damp hair was sticking to her cheeks. “Uhm, can we come in?” she asked, pushing forward without waiting for an answer. 

Constance fell back a step. “Oh, of course.” She ushered them into the house with a sweep of her arm. 

Violet couldn’t understand how Billie put up with her. Constance was so overbearing, a total Blanche wanna be from A Street Car Named Desire. But, staying true to her word, after shaking off the rain, Violet followed Constance and Billie into the kitchen. 

Constance set about making tea, to warm them up, or something old fashioned like that. Billie set down her little suitcase of items on the countertop, running her hands over the faded leather. “I want to begin today,” Billie said, “and hopefully finish as well.”

Constance looked up, startled, the tea kettle held in her hands just above the stove. “Finish? Billie Dean, I thought you said this was going to be a multi-part series? I thought you were going to give this house and its occupants the appreciation they deserve.” A thread of anger laced her words. 

Anger that gave Violet a slight chill. She looked at Billie for reassurance. 

“And we will,” Billie said carefully, “if the spirits cooperate. The past two days, they haven’t been active enough to commune with, and if that continues, there won’t be much I can use for the show.” 

As she spoke, the lights above flickered. Violet smirked, with the storm is seemed the perfect time for calling on the ghosts that were supposed to occupy this house. 

“Let’s get started, alright?” Billie prompted. 

Constance set the tea kettle down with an audible thud and swept towards them, the counter a barrier between them. “Yes, let’s.” 

Billie unzipped her case and took out two white candles and some incense. Violet felt a prickle of intrigue. She’d never seen a séance, or whatever this was, before. Billie set up the candles next to each other. She lit the incense and waved it around a little. Violet fought back the urge to cough. Then Billie lit the candles from the incense.  
Instantly, the house was plunged into darkness. Outside, thunder cascaded in the background, lightning painted the sky in blinding lines of white. Billie shrieked, her hand reaching out and clamping around Violet’s 

Violet laughed, a ghostly sound in the dark. “Cool,” she said, trying to will of her own humor into Billie. “It’s a blackout, because of the storm,” she said, “right?”

“Right.” Billie’s voice wavered. 

“No,” Constance said firmly. “It’s them.”

A sudden thump of a ball against hard wood spooked them all. They jerked to look behind them, like a group in a scary movie. “The thunder probably knocked something over?” Violet said, hoping someone would second her thought. 

“Do you have a flashlight?” Billie asked. 

As she spoke, the candles sparked to life. Violet reached out and picked one up, holding it out toward the living room. It offered a very soft circle of light that barely penetrated the darkness of the house. 

“Darlings,” Constance said, speaking to the house, or so it seemed to Violet. “Do you want to come out and say hello?”

Feeling it was a now or never type of situation, Violet thrust the candle into Billie’s hand, the one not still clutching Violet’s hand. Then she groped out in front of her on the counter until she found the video recorder. She ran her fingers over the buttons until she found the one that turned it. The auto settings on the camera quickly adjusted it to night view. 

Violet lifted it up, holding it close to her face. She stared hard into the slight brightness of the dark screen. Swinging it to the left, the lens flared with green light, illuminating the two other women in the room. But it was the shape at the corner of the screen that caught her attention. 

Violet turned the camera that way and the shape took form. A person shaped form. “Uhm – uh – Billie,” she stuttered, lifting their joined hands to point in the direction of the shape on the camera. 

“What is it?” Billie asked, her voice pitched high. 

“It, well, it might be a ghost?” Violet stared with wide eyes at the screen. Was she really saying this? Because she didn’t believe in ghosts. So that couldn’t possibly be a ghost she saw on the screen. It just couldn’t. 

“Who are you?” Billie asked, her voice quavering. “How can I help you?”

To Violet’s shock, the figure turned toward the camera. She gasped, staring into the face of a woman. One with hair that would fit perfectly in a movie about the Roaring Twenties. “She’s looking at you,” Violet whispered. 

The woman stepped forward. “Me? You’re the one in my house.” 

The voice was solid, as if the person speaking was solid, human. Which made Violet suspicious. If it sounded like a person, looked like a person, then it was probably a person. A real live one. The lights cutting out, Constance’s dramatic performance? All fitting for making believe that a ghost was in the house, which was exactly what Constance wanted, it seemed. 

Violet gently pried her hand out of Billie’s grasp. “No, no, Violet, don’t,” Billie pleaded. 

Without heeding, Violet kept moving forward, towards the green lit figure in the camera. The figure didn’t shy back, like she had expected it to. It remained where it was. “What are you doing in my house?” the figure demanded. 

“Violet, stop!” Billie’s voice was filled with concern. 

The room seemed to become increasingly cold as Violet inched forward. 

“No!” A sudden arm around her waist stopped her in her tracks. Violet fell back against the chest that the arm was connected to. “Go away!” 

“Tate?” Violet asked, craning her neck back to look at the boy holding her. Then she looked quickly back at her camera but the figure was gone. “Tate! What the hell! Another stupid prank?”

Overhead, the lights clicked back on, pouring light into the room. There was no woman where the figure on the camera had been. Violet turn around, pushing roughly away from Tate. “This is shit, you know that, right?” 

But he wasn’t looking at her, and he wasn’t letting go. His arm had only shifted to brace against her lower back, holding her close against him. “You shouldn’t stir them up.” It was obvious he was speaking to Billie. 

“Oh come on,” Violet said. “You’ve been doing all this. Both of you.”

“Violet, we’re leaving.” Billie held her hand out toward Violet. Tate held onto her more securely. 

Violet didn’t move. She was annoyed with Tate for messing around again, for trying to scare her in this stupid house. But she still liked him. She’d rather spend this shitty stormy day with him in this creepy old house than go back to the Billie’s apartment and watch 90s sitcoms. 

“Who’s there?” Constance asked. The lines of her face were drawn down in something close to desperation. 

“Hello?” Violet asked, irked. “Your fake ghost already fled. You don’t need to keep up the ploy. It’s just the four of us now.”

Constance’s voice trembled, “Four?” 

“Constance,” Billie cut in before Violet could say something about how demented Constance was acting, “Tate’s here.” 

Behind her, Tate tightened his grip. “Let’s go,” he whispered, his voice low and angry. 

“What’s going on?” she asked him. 

“Tate? Tate if you’re there, why won’t you let mommy see you?”

“Spirits can only be seen if they want to be,” Billie said gently, like it was something she had reminded Constance of more than once. 

“You’re all acting crazy,” Violet accused, beginning to feel wrong footed. “Tate is right here, with me.” She curled her hand firmly around his arm as if to reassure herself of that fact. 

“Oh, Tate,” Constance said, “not another whore.”

“Hey!” Violet cried in protest. 

“Stop it!” Tate shouted. “Stop it! Go away!” He pulled Violet with him as he made a break for the staircase. 

“No, Violet!” Billie reached for her, but her fingers only brushed against Violet’s arm. “We need to leave, you need to come with me.” 

Between the crazy in the kitchen and the silence upstairs, Violet chose Tate. She fled with him up the stairs and down the hallway to the room that seemed so much like him. Safely behind its door, Tate clicked the lock and sank down on the carpet in front of the bed. He pressed his fists to the sides of his head and groaned. 

Violet looked at him with concern, kneeling in front of him and prying his hands away from his temples. “What’s going on, Tate? What was that downstairs?”

“She ruined it,” he said, angry tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. “She always ruins everything. She couldn’t settle for ruining her own life, she had to ruin my dad’s, and mine, and Addy’s.” 

“Hey,” Violet tempered, drawing her sleeves down over her fingers and pressing against the corners of Tate’s closed eyes. “Constance, she’s your mom?” He huffed a disgusted laugh. “So, why is she pretending she couldn’t see you? Is that like a sick game she plays with you?” 

Tate didn’t answer. He scooted closer so his bowed head could rest on Violet’s shoulder. She wrapped her arms around his back, trying to encompass him in her warmth. She had a thing for guys with issues, and it seemed like Tate had a backpack full of them. It wasn’t like she came without her own luggage. 

“Promise you won’t be afraid,” Tate said, his voice muffled against her hair. 

“Not afraid of anything, remember,” she teased lightly.

Tate took a deep breath then pulled back to look at Violet. His brown eyes were so deep with sorrow that all Violet wanted to do was pull him back into her arms. “I’m dead.”

She stared at him, waiting for the punch line. When one didn’t come, she offered her own, “Inside?”

“Violet, I’m dead,” he said again. “I died in this house, in this room.” 

It was morbid, really morbid. “Okay,” she said uncertainly. “Are we having some sort of philosophical conversation I’m not getting?”

“It’s true,” he insisted. “Look me up. Tate Langdon. Then you’ll see that every child my mother ever had ended up a monster. Except for Addy. Addy was beautiful but my mother still managed to ruin her.”

“Tate, I don’t really –“ 

He cut her off, stand abruptly to his feet and pulling her up with him. “Go!” he shouted. “Find out who I really am. Then leave! Leave like everyone always has!” 

“Tate,” she tried again, but he wasn’t having any of it. 

“Leave!” he screamed in her face. 

Violet backed away. The whole day was a swirl of insanity and maybe leaving was the best thing she could do. Without looking back, she left the room and clattered down the stairs, she burst into the still pouring rain and made the quick run to Billie’s car. Billie Dean was already sitting inside it. 

Billie locked the doors as soon as Violet was inside and threw the car into reverse. “There might be some things I should tell you about that house and . . . its occupants.”

~*~*~*~ 

Warm and dry inside Billie’s apartment, they sat across from each other on the sofa. Billie looked ruffled, a look she never wore. If anything, Violet had found that Billie approached everything with unerring confidence.

“That house,” Billie shook her head, “it’s one of the darkest places I’ve ever been. Only one residence outweighs that house in evil. The Hotel Cortez.” Billie shivered just saying the name. 

Violet waited for her to continue. 

“When I first learned of the Murder House, I was on that tour, the bus tour.” Billie laughed at herself. “I wanted to see if any of the supposed haunted spots in LA were real. This was the only one. And boy was it haunted.” Billie ran her hands up and down her arms as if to keep herself warm, but the house was filled with cozy heat and the dissipating humidity from the showers they both had taken when they returned. 

“I could feel it, even on the bus, I could feel it. An ebb of darkness that flowed out of the house and surrounded me like a swamp. I didn’t go back, not for a long time, not until Constance called me. She had heard of me, and we became friends. It was after that when she asked me to help her contact her son.” Billie looked sharply at Violet. 

“Tate,” Violet supplied. 

“Exactly.” 

“She wanted you to contact him – because he was dead?” Violet had trouble making herself say the words. She didn’t believe in ghosts and she certainly didn’t believe that the guy she had spent the past three days talking to could be one. He had touched her, spoken to her, there was no way he was a ghost. 

“Yes,” Billie confirmed. “It was only when I went to her house to help her communicate with him that I found out where he had died. In that house. That swamp of darkness.” Billie shook her head softly. “The spirits in that house, they are trapped there. Something evil permeates the ground of that house, the very earth it sits upon, and it keeps anyone who dies there a prisoner to its walls.” 

“You know how unbelievable this sounds, right?” Violet asked. 

“I know, but you’ve seen it. You’ve seen that house. You’ve seen some of the things that lurk inside it. You’ve even been hurt by some.” Billie Dean ran her thumb over the scratch marks still lingering on the back of Violet’s hand. 

“That was a cat,” Violet countered, but now she didn’t feel so sure. 

“I wish that it was,” Billie said. “Not all the spirits in the house are dark ones. But the one that hurt you? It’s dark, inhumane. And Tate – “ she broke off. 

“He told me to look him up,” Violet filled the silence. “He told me to see that his mother’s children turned out monsters.” 

She wasn’t sure if she believed yet, because it was so impossible. But somehow, well, she was giving herself over to the possibility. Those rooms. The one that so fit Tate’s personality, the one he claimed to have died in. The room of the little girls who burned, with the matching twin beds and yellow rose comforters.

“Tate has done some truly awful things. More than is on the internet. But you should start there.” Billie patted Violet’s hand, as if to console her. “I should have kept you away from him, I’m very sorry about that. I didn’t think anyone as dark as Tate could be drawn to someone with your light. Because you shine, Violet. You have all the glow of youth and a life of choices in front of you. That should have scared him away, but it didn’t.” She frowned. 

Violet eased herself off the sofa, feeling more than a little disquieted by Billie’s sudden revelation about her ‘light.’ Billie could be off putting like that, and right now, after the eerie morning she had, some distance from Billie wouldn’t be remiss. 

So Violet went to her room, or the guest room really, a small space with just enough room for a bed and dresser. She pulled her laptop out from beneath the bed and turned it on. Sitting, propped against the pillows, Violet searched Tate Langdon.

~*~*~*~

When Violet went to Murder House that night, Billie wasn’t with her. Violet had snuck out of the Billie’s apartment in the hours after midnight, when Billie was sound asleep, and hailed a cab. The driver had laughed out loud when she told him where she wanted to go. It seemed that Murder House was infamous among the locals. And why shouldn’t it be, with the last two occupants found dead in the basement.

Murder-suicide, the police records said. But that wasn’t the story Billie Dean had told her when Violet got done with her research on Tate. Murder, yes, but not by anyone who could be sent to jail. 

Standing on the doorstep, Violet pounded on the wooden door. “Tate! Tate! Let me in!” 

The door swung open of its own accord. Tate was standing at the top of the staircase, his features turbulent, but nothing compared to the storm Violet felt swirling inside her. 

“How could you!” she demanded. “All those kids! High schoolers like us! You killed them. Murdered them.” 

“I wanted to,” Tate said flatly. “I was angry and messed up and I wanted to die. I wanted to get out of this awful filthy world. So I set them free first.” 

“That’s disgusting. What you did – “ she broke off, shaking her head. There were no words for what Tate did. For being a school shooter; for ruining the lives of the people he killed, their families, the people and families that survived. 

Tate just watched her. He didn’t rally to defend himself. He didn’t beg for forgiveness. He just watched. 

“That wasn’t all you did either,” she challenged, hating his silence. 

A flicker of worry crossed Tate’s face. “Who told you?”

“What does it matter?” Violet shouted at him. “You killed those two guys who lived here. Two guys who never did anything to you. Why would you do that? What’s wrong with you?”

“Everything!” Tate shouted back. “Can’t you see that? Everything is wrong with me. My head, it doesn’t work right. I’ve never been happy, I’ve never done the right thing, I’ve always been like this. Always fucked up.” He tugged at his hair, screaming. 

“Stop it!” Violet yelled. She rushed up the stairs, her hands tugging at his wrists until his arms fell limp at his sides. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to beat yourself up when you aren’t even sorry. That’s just another lie, Tate.”

“Then what should I do, Violet? Because I don’t know how else to be. I have never been anything but a monster. And you know the sick part? I didn’t know I was a monster until I met you.” He looked into her eyes, his own filled with loneliness. 

“Stop it,” she said again, less forcefully. “Don’t make me your redemption. That’s stupid. And cliché.” 

Tate gave a hollow laugh. “So what? I’m a ghost.” He turned his palm so that it aligned with hers. In careful movements, he laced their fingers together, Violet didn’t pull away. “I’ve been living in this house, filled with darkness and shadows. But the day you stood in the driveway, I saw the light for the first time in my life. Don’t take that away from me, Violet, please.” 

She exhaled slowly. “I’m not afraid of ghosts.” 

“I know you’re not,” Tate agreed, tipping his head forward so that his nose brushed hers. 

When he bent down, Violet thought of all the different choices she had. Of all the ones she probably should make. She cast them aside. The girl who wasn’t afraid of anything had finally found something that scared her. Just a little bit, just enough that it gave her a thrill. 

Violet thought that’s what falling in love must be like. And she thought she might be doing that too. 

“Tell me I glow,” she prompted Tate.

He grinned down, his face so close to hers now that his eyes blurred into one. “You are the brightest thing I have ever seen. You’re beautiful, Violet. So beautiful.”

She smiled, tilting her head back. Tate took the offering and pressed his lips against hers. They were warm, soft. Tate kissed her with reverence. Violet had never been kissed like that before, like she was more than just a girl and he was more than just a boy. Tate kissed Violet like she was the center of her universe. She kissed him back like she was adjusting her center of gravity to his. 

“Stay with me,” he whispered when they finally broke apart. 

Violet licked his bottom lip, something she had always wanted to try but never had the courage to before. With Tate, Violet felt like she could try anything, that he would let her be herself and always catch her before she fell. “I’m staying,” she promised. 

It would take some doing. Convincing her mom that moving California was the only way to keep her daughter sane. It might help break up her parents’ rotten marriage, which would be a plus. She wouldn’t mind only seeing her dad on weekends. 

“Tell me a scary story,” she said, her lips brushing Tate’s with every word. 

“I am one.”

She laughed, pushing away from him, then reeling him back close with her hands tangled in the fabric of his latest Mr. Roger’s sweater. “Loser,” she laughed. 

Tate laughed with her, then he closed in on her personal space, his lips sweeping over hers and drowning her in gentle kisses, so at odds with the jagged shards of his past. Violet thought this might just be the best summer she was ever going to have.


End file.
